Coming Back to you
by Silverblacktears
Summary: If you have read the last to fics by me then this is the next bit, it is short and weird but has a point in the long run. Please Read and Review


Returning to you  
  
What you were expecting a romance? Disclaimer; Yeah, Roughnecks the Starship Trooper chronicles is not mine, if it were it'd be taught in the national curriculum, but Ellen as you should know by now is. Any new campaigns and planets mentioned are also mine, and such like.  
  
This takes place about a month after the last one, Ellen was stationed way on Hydora and T'Phai was elsewhere, this is their meeting up again afterwards. If there is request for it then the mentioned letters that went between the two can be developed - I played with that idea for a little while so there is a backlog for it in my mind.  
  
Please enjoy this and if you have the time and patience review it too, just two words would do, I'll even settle for one word! Comments either good or bad will be considered and probably thanked! Yes I do mean the bad ones too, means you read it right?  
  
~*~*~  
  
Ellen leapt off the shuttle from Hydora with a little more enthusiasm then was usual even for herself; Higgins was standing on the deck just by the disembarking station. "Hey Higwig, what are you doing here?" She asked him with a wide smile; it was very good to be back around the Roughnecks, even if she had not seen T'Phai yet.  
  
He smiled back at her, greeting with a formal hug, "I know you were expecting T'Phai, but he's out on duty with the others right now and I was hurt yesterday so I got today off to recuperate. At least someone was here right?" He blurted out rapidly, Ellen's smile widened.  
  
"I suppose so, when do the others get back?"  
  
"Not long, T'Phai said that he will meet us in the mess hall."  
  
She looked out of the side of her eyes at him for a while and they started down the corridor, "Food good here?" She queried, "I'm a little peckish due to the fact that Hydora food wasn't so great." Ellen scratched thoughtfully at the scar over her eye.  
  
Higgins looked to her, his eyes watching her for a while as he pondered over her appearance; her scar was known about but it was different then he had imagined it. Rather than being small, like T'Phai's, Ellen's was wide and it ran almost to her chin. "Do you like it?" She asked him, her tone was smiley and bright as usual.  
  
Higgins thought about what to say without hurting her feelings. "Individual," She laughed at him with her eyes alight with delight. Higgins laughed nervously too, he supposed that it was something she had gotten used too, and in a funny way it looked as if it suited her.  
  
"Well I don't know of any other doctors with such an obvious one. What do you think Teph will make of it?"  
  
"If he's like me then he's expecting it to be less obvious."  
  
They arrived in the crowded mess hall, several MI were eating their meals and ignored the two as they entered. "I was shocked when I saw it too," Ellen admitted. "But now I just think it looks cool!" He nodded slightly too. "What did you do to yourself?"  
  
"Not a lot, just a precaution keeping me here now."  
  
Ellen nodded slightly, "How has everyone been here?" She queried - mainly after how T'Phai had been, wanting to know the impact that her being absent had had on him. Wondering if it had affected him as badly as it had her, she had had no one to talk with on Hydora, and the human's tending to laugh at her frequent drifts into daydreams.  
  
"Well Dizzy and Rico are still bickering, Brutto's still Brutto, Razak's still being the brilliant leader he always was, Gossard's still harping after Dizzy, Doc's appetite has grown, I'm fine."  
  
He missed out T'Phai on purpose; she looked to him with a slightly cheeky grin. "You did that on purpose, you know who I really wanted to know about - ok then don't tell me." He grinned again.  
  
"He's fine,"  
  
The Roughnecks minus Razak entered from patrol, each Human greeted Ellen separately but with nothing much more then a comment about her scar and left it at that. T'Phai was not there and they all noticed how the doctor was looking increasingly more worried.  
  
Dizzy sat on the chair nearby, she and Ellen got on a little better then Ellen and the other Human Roughnecks except for Higgins, she looked at the scar on her face before getting into the conversation Ellen wanted. "He said to meet him in the Skinnie mess bay." Ellen stood and Higgins left too, Dizzy let out a brief chuckle; she liked winding any one up.  
  
~*~*~  
  
T'Phai sat himself at one of the secluded tables, he was deliberately making Ellen wait to see him but it was difficult to do so because he wanted to see her so much. His helmet was on a shelf by the door and he had something ready to eat in front of him. He was picking at it thoughtfully ignoring the constant stream of beings entering.  
  
He started as someone tapped him on the shoulder, "I thought that you were alert," A light female voice said by his side. He looked to the other being besides him; L'Meariea and the rest of her squad were stationed briefly on their base between assignments and she had been the one to make him jump.  
  
She sat on the other side of the table; she and T'Phai had met a few months ago when the Roughnecks and Romeo squad had been ordered back to Tophet in order to kill a brain bug there. The two had kept in contact because L'Meariea wanted to keep an eye on T'Phau who had been her responsibility before his name change from T'Alos. "You know why I am so jumpy,"  
  
"Have you not seen her yet?"  
  
Romeo squad had been on Hydora briefly and L'Meariea had made sure she had looked up Ellen whilst there. "No," He answered simply but he felt like there were no simple words. Ellen and he had been friends for a while, ever since she had been his treating medic when he had had a chest wound - the two had been separated whilst she went to Hydora and he was stationed on Slek-La.  
  
Slek-La was an icy planet; many of the Human's nicknamed it Slick for even with the boots compensating for the slippery nature of its surface many ended up falling over. Skinnie's cursed at the planets cold nature, many wondering how anything could ever be that cold. T'Phai himself had been very nervous whilst there because if a rapture appeared in his suit then he would be dead instantly due to the severe cold.  
  
"Did she ever send you a picture of her scar?"  
  
"No,"  
  
"Do not be concerned, I did not get one either." Her comment was meant as funny and T'Phai let out a very soft snorted laugh, L'Meariea was not as close to Ellen as he was so the idea that the Human would send her a picture was ludicrous. "Did she ever tell you who did it?"  
  
A Skinnie in her care had caused Ellen's scar but she had been adamant on it not being her patients fault and would not tell him the officer's name. 'I will not see the patient punished for something that wasn't wholly their fault,' the line from one of her letters continued to bother him for he felt that the officer deserved punishment. "No, she was insistent on not telling me," He admitted.  
  
There was a fuss as someone else entered and the two Skinnies looked to one another, T'Phai gave a slight grin for he knew only one person could cause that much commotion on entering a room. He returned to looking as if he was eating and L'Meariea left the table to get something of her own to eat. Someone threw herself into the seat opposite him and he did not look up. "Hello Ellen,"  
  
"'Hello Ellen?' That's all you've got to say to me?" She snorted, "See I was going to say something really nice in greeting but now you've just made me go and forget it!" She was grinning insanely but her helmet obstructed the view of her face and he could not see her scar. "Can't we go somewhere else? I want to show you my scar and it's better without a helmet."  
  
~*~*~  
  
Ellen entered her bare room first, she had not been there yet and the room was as so far dismal and bear, she would tack up a few family photos and make it better. There was a loud noise as T'Phai's long legs hit a crate that contained her stuff. "Watch your legs there," He stooped forward slightly to rub his shin, the crate had most unfortunately not caught the front of his leg but the side meaning that the protective plates on his legs were ineffective. "That really wasn't my fault, I mean they put that there and not me!"  
  
She motioned that he should sit and deliberately busied herself with something so that he could not see her face. "Ellen, I thought you wanted me to see your scar." She sat opposite him and leaned into the light. He inhaled a little sharply; he had been living with the mental image of Ellen since they had been separated and the scar had shocked him.  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
"Impressive,"  
  
He caught himself a little too late and snapped back to his usual ways. "That is appalling; I do not believe that a member of my own kind caused your wound. I do not see why you are refusing to give me the perpetrator's name!"  
  
"I can't give you the name of a corpse!"  
  
Her snapped comment broke into the Skinnie's ranting anger and Ellen looked him in the eye. "The person who did this had just been told that they were dying, they got shocked by another medic entering and lashed out."  
  
"There is still the family name,"  
  
"Oh please, T'Phai how would you like it if you, hypothetically, hurt someone like this? How would you like it if the person pressed charges? How would you like it if T'Phal and M'Rette were paying for something that you did?"  
  
He thought things over; he had gotten a little emotional on the matter and lost his usually present focus. "Sorry, I got carried away." T'Phai held out a hand to her and she grasped it briefly to show that she did not really care. "I did not think that your scar would be that wide nor long, you understated."  
  
She grinned, sat back and then slouched into her chair; "I thought you knew that about me already." She teased, "I didn't see it as all that big really, yeah I had a crisis when I saw it but that's as far as it goes, I think its cool!"  
  
There was silences as the two were more then happy to just sit in one another's company, "I am sorry that I did not come and meet you," T'Phai said at last. "Razak got the orders late and so did we, I was lucky that Higgins was off."  
  
~*~*~  
  
End That was honestly it, I just needed the two in the same place is all. 


End file.
